East Timor and the crisis of the Indonesian intelligence state

Abstract

This article begins by asking how it was that Indonesia was able to sustain its illegal invasion of East Timor for almost a quarter of a century; and how Suharto was able to rule Indonesia for more than three decades without domestic legitimacy and relying on massive state violence toward the Indonesian citizenry. The argument concentrates on the political-economic characteristics of the Indonesian rentier-militarist state, which alone made Suharto's rule viable, and outlines the connections between the erosion of those characteristics and the fall of Suharto and collapse of Jakarta's rule in East Timor. The article next sketches the role of Indonesian intelligence organizations and special forces in the last phase of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor; it then outlines the role of surveillance and terror in New Order Indonesia, and introduces the institutions that make up the Indonesian intelligence state. Finally, it concludes by briefly discussing the possible future of the Indonesian intelligence state under the Wahid administration.